Grim reality looms as search for missing Texas flood victims presses on

USA Today

a day ago

Each day, hundreds of rescuers traverse flood-mauled riverbanks searching for victims. But with each passing day, local officials say it's harder to remain optimistic.
Hours ticked by. Days morphed into long, painful weeks. Then agonizing months.
Still, Lysa Gindinova clung to hope. A hope that somehow, somewhere amid the tangled mountains of mud-caked debris along the South Toe River in Western North Carolina the bodies of her 13-year-old cousin, Yevhenii Segen, and their grandmother, Tatiana Novitnia, would be found.
The two were swept away by floods spawned by Hurricane Helene last year. Rescue crews found the bodies of an aunt and uncle who were missing. But not Yevhenii and Novitnia.
Nearly 10 months later, there's still no sign of them – and the family, who fled the fighting in Ukraine for the serene mountains of North Carolina, still wrestles with the fact that they may never see them again.
'It doesn't feel real,' Gindinova told USA TODAY.
Gindinova and her family are among countless residents across the United States whose loved ones are presumed dead but never found months or years after natural disasters such as hurricanes, floods, mudslides and earthquakes.
Families in Texas are starting to face that same haunting realization after the deadly Hill Country flash floods as volunteers continue to scour the region for the missing.
At least 120 bodies have been recovered since heavy rainfall turned the Guadalupe River into a torrent of destruction in the early hours of July 4. Ninety-six of those killed were in Kerr County, the hardest-hit in Central Texas where the toll includes at least 36 children.
The catastrophic flooding along the Guadalupe, which rose to more than 35 feet in some places, pushed homes off their foundations and obliterated campsites and RV parks as if by dynamite.
More than 160 people were still missing in the county, authorities said July 10, and hopes of finding survivors dwindle with each passing day. County authorities say they haven't made a "live rescue" since the day of the flood.
Much like last year's North Carolina floods, the Texas floods left behind mountains of debris: piles of crushed trailers and cars, stacks of downed cypress trees and walls of hardened mud that make recovery challenging.
Each day, hundreds of rescuers – many of them volunteers from across the state and country – traverse flood-mauled riverbanks searching for victims. But the amount of debris and destruction have made the grim task slow and taxing.
'It's possible there are victims in that debris pile,' Kerrville Police Department Sgt. Jonathan Lamb told reporters earlier in the week, urging residents not to touch mounds of wreckage before it's properly searched. He said it was getting 'harder and harder to become optimistic.'
'One of the most horrific experiences'
Past disasters of similar scope have left families waiting for months, years and even decades to recover loved ones, said Chris Boyer, executive director of the National Association for Search and Rescue.
He pointed to Hurricane Helene, where at least five people, including Yevhenni and Novitnia, were never found. And two decades after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005, killing more than 1,800 people, about 30 have yet to be identified, said Jason Melancon of the Orleans Parish Coroner's Office.
For authorities on the ground, deciding when to call off search parties or shift them into full recovery mode is 'a highly emotional decision,' especially in more rural areas, Boyer said.
'There's no describing how to tell a family that you're done searching for their loved one and that they may never get the remains back,' said Boyer, who has led recovery crews in aviation disasters.
For a search and rescue organizer, he said, 'it's one of the most horrific experiences you're going to have.'
'A lot more violent'
Troy Tillman, 34, is a burly sheriff's detective from just outside Lubbock, Texas.
He arrived in Kerr County on July 6 to help search for missing people. He has done this before. Tillman helped rescue more than 100 people stranded in homes after floods in Vidor, Texas, in 2017 in the wake of Hurricane Harvey and took part in missions during last year's wildfires in the Texas panhandle.
One of his first searches in the Texas Hill Country revealed just how different this disaster would be: He and his crew noticed a glimmer in a rocky bank along the Guadalupe in Center Point, about 10 miles downriver from Kerrville.
As they dug around the object, they realized it was a Ford F-250 pickup – completely submerged in mud and rock.
If a 3-ton truck like that is buried, Tillman thought, what else could be entombed at their feet?
'(Hurricane) Harvey didn't move people 10 miles from where they were,' he said. 'This was a lot more violent.'
On July 10, Tillman and others were scouring a stretch of riverbank in Center Point when they came upon a field of crumpled RVs, cars and camper trailers stretching about 200 yards. They radioed in for heavy equipment, including an excavator and skid-steer loaders.
He planned to keep at it until told to go home.
'If we do find a kid or someone's mother or sister, it's closure for that family,' Tillman said.
Another volunteer searching through the debris was Jonathan McComb, who knows firsthand the pain disasters can deliver.
McComb was vacationing with his family and friends in a riverside home in Wimberley, Texas, about 80 miles east of Kerr County, during Memorial Day weekend 2015, when violent floods ripped the home off its pilings and sent it roaring down the Blanco River.
McComb was the only one of the nine people at the home to survive.
The bodies of his wife, Laura, and son, Andrew, 6, were recovered. But his 4-year-old daughter, Leighton, was never seen again. Later that year, McComb joined TEXSAR, a search and rescue volunteer group that deploys to disasters around Texas.
He arrived in Kerr County on July 4 to help search for the missing and has been doing so every day since.
'We weren't able to recover my daughter from 10 years ago, and I know what that feels like,' McComb told USA TODAY. 'I want to do what I can to help.'
In disaster this big, not all are found
During his decades of experience, Boyer said, flood survivors are almost always found within hours of the disaster, even if they're swept miles from where they entered the water.
He said he didn't know of any major floods of similar scale in which survivors were found past the first 24 hours. He noted the power of the rushing water and the large debris – cars, trees, mobile homes – carried in the raging torrent.
'If you're caught in that, your odds of survival are very minimal,' Boyler said.
With so many people missing, it's likely not everyone will be found – at least not immediately, Boyer said.
'In disasters like this, there's a high probability you won't find everyone,' he said. 'There are 50-foot walls of dead trees, boulders and silt that people could be under. Those areas may not be exposed again until the next big flood 50 years from now.'
In Texas, state authorities and scientists are trying to identify the bodies they've recovered using rapid DNA tests – a tool commonly employed in the wake of natural disasters.
As of July 9, at least 15 adults and 13 children remained unidentified in Kerr County alone, Sheriff Larry Leitha said.
Texas Rangers are in charge of collecting DNA from family members and the dead and flying them to the University of North Texas near Dallas for analysis, Col. Freeman Martin of the Texas Department of Public Safety said this week.
As drones have made it easier to peer into hard-to-reach areas, advancements in DNA technology have greatly improved the ability of authorities to identify disaster victims, Boyer said.
Far less material is needed to find a DNA match, he said, and rapid tests allow labs to return results in a matter of days – not weeks.
'Since Katrina, that technology has exploded and moved light-years ahead,' he said.
A new flood resurrects old memories
But to identify anyone, first you need the body.
Mitch Hampton, a longtime river guide and volunteer in Western North Carolina, spent weeks last year leading search teams on his inflatable rafts down the French Broad River, first leading the rescue of 11 people at the height of the floods then helping recover three of the five bodies found in his county.
After four weeks, he and his raft-rescue team shifted their focus to the South Toe River and its tributaries in neighboring Yancey County, where he spent another two weeks scouring riverbanks and poking through debris piles, looking for the missing Ukrainian family members.
They were never found.
Hampton said images of the disaster unfurling in Texas resurrected painful memories. One photo in particular – of a first responder next to a towering debris pile, his face buried in his hand – recalled the frustration of working 12-hour days along the French Broad and South Toe rivers and often coming up with nothing, how the flood debris seemed to just swallow people whole, and how rescue crews he ferried on his raft would at times bow their head and cry.
'It reminded me of the feeling of wanting to do something and feeling helpless at the same time,' Hampton said. 'My heart's torn looking at what's happening out there. It's a tough thing to deal with.'
'Don't think there will ever be closure'
It took 10 days for Gindinova to learn that her aunt and uncle, Anastasiia and Dmytryo Segen, had been found dead miles down the South Toe River. She traveled from New York to Micaville, North Carolina, to identify the bodies.
With no word about the Segens' son Yevhenii, Gindinova still hoped her young cousin would be rescued. For days, she continued to search the riverbanks herself and stayed in close contact with volunteer groups scouring the mountains.
But after a while, the search parties disbanded. The calls stopped coming. Authorities told her Yevhenii and her grandmother probably were gone forever.
In the months after the storm, Gindinova said, she leaned on her faith and reread the Book of Job for guidance. She found some comfort in vivid memories of her loved ones, like how Yevhenii made small animals with his 3-D printer or her grandmother's colorful cross stitches that she gifted to friends and loved ones.
But the pain of their absence lingers.
'I don't think there will ever be closure,' Gindinova said.
Once the bodies were recovered, the family cremated the Segens and spread their ashes across a high point of the Blue Ridge Mountains near their home.
If Yevhenii and Novitnia are ever found, they'll receive the same ritual.
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